


As One

by AKnightOfAGoodKing



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Bittersweet, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Love, Time - Freeform, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 00:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21519019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKnightOfAGoodKing/pseuds/AKnightOfAGoodKing
Summary: Vergil raises his blade above him, its tip pressed gently against his chest. He inhales, looking at the last remaining smile on that portrait, and he exhales, thrusting Yamato through his tattered heart.He is enveloped in light, painful and unsatisfactory.Third of theI went to the Garden of Love,  And saw what I never had seentrilogy:1.Devils Cry, the prologue2.Together & Whole, the story3. As One, the epilogue[DO NOT REPOST/REUSE MY WORK(S) WITHOUT MY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND PERMISSION]A/N: Due to the nature of this work, the ending author's note will be in the comment section.
Relationships: Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 76





	As One

* * *

**Nulla**

". . . I killed you, and you're saying you don't want me to die from old age?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

**I**

Dante kept his promise. He did not die of old age. Instead, like a fool, he dies like a sacrificial lamb, slaughtered not by any demon but by _humans_.

Ironic, isn't it? That the inhabitants of the world he wanted to protect—his mother's people—were the ones to finally put an end to the legendary devil hunter?

_Why?_

Demons were demons, there's no in-between. Sparda was not a savior, it was only a disguise. Any human who'd couple with a creature like him was not kin at all. Abominations conceived from such a union were only abominations.

_How could they?_

They didn't know him, didn't know him for the man he was. They were so incapable of love that they didn't care that he did, that he loved so much, so forgiving and patient. He was a saint they did not believe in.

_How did they?_

They went for Vergil first.

Brutal strength is enough to kill a demon, but very few humans are strong enough, or had the firepower, to take them down on their own. So they delve into magic, something that all beings are capable of control, and a coven of witches who deceived themselves as protectors of humanity gained enough power and numbers to make themselves troublesome.

Their hits hurt, their spells searing through their tough skin. It was a little frightening if not exciting, to face humans who could hold themselves against the sons of Sparda, Nero right behind them. Vergil and Dante were led into an isolated room where they were immediately surrounded.

It just happened _so fast_.

They had a plan, and it was to attack Vergil. Dozens of witches cast their magic at him, there were too many to take them all out at once before one shot hit. They were willing to suffer one demon's wrath in order to take down another; what they didn't expect was for one demon to sacrifice his life to save the other, his devil trigger form enveloping his brother like a shield with his wings and body.

The witches didn't want them for anything but for them to die. There was no ritual waiting to be done or demands to be made. They achieved what they wanted, but their success was a shock that froze every one of them, watching the lonely demon with what may have been a semblance of guilt and awe.

All the while, a little brother laid on the dirty ground, breathless as his blue eyes stared at nothing. At death, his trigger faded away, his demon blood unable to save him from his mortality, and he was just a man, a man Vergil loved so dearly. There wasn't time to say goodbye, no golden thread of hope to grasp at but a red string in his peripheral burning away into nothing.

Vergil had never seen it before, but he knew it was _theirs_. No, not theirs. Not anymore. It was his fault, he let his guard down because he always believed they would burn up in the sun before they fall.

And for that, _Dante dies_.

**II**

All he remembers doing after, a calm hollowness eats itself into his chest is killing every witch in the room. They scream, they scream a lot, but it falls to deaf ears as Vergil triggers, his speed inhuman. With nothing else to think about, he slaughters them, cutting their hands from their arms and their feet from their legs. He takes the time to look in their eyes as they cry and beg, but he gives them the mercy they gave his brother, beheading them one by one.

It’s a massacre, the walls splattered with blood and the floor littered with dismembered corpses. It reeks of death in there, a curse that would haunt the grounds for generations to come, but that means nothing to Vergil who allowed himself only one lonely moan as he gathers his brother in his arms.

Death does not appear to him, like in his dream long ago, but he feels it, heavy and cold. It is a void at the edge of the universe which distorts all life before it destroys it.

_“Kiss me?”_

_“I’ve only ever wanted you, dumbass.”_

_“I know what you meant.”_

_“I’m here for you.”_

_“You came back.”_

_“Always."_

**III**

_"I love you, Vergil."_

**IV**

When Nero catches up and bursts into the room, he throws up. There is too much human in him to overlook the slaughter of his kin, because it's humanity that cares for each other. It's his humanity that glares at his father with disgust and betrayal, but Vergil only clings onto his brother blankly.

Their blades are nowhere to be found.

"What the fuck?!" the devil hunter shouts, reasonably angered, but his expression falls quickly the moment his eyes look upon them both. Like an arrow to a bird, realization settles on his face, lips trembling in disbelief as he staggers over to his uncle. "No, no, no,” he begs, desperation growing louder and louder with every syllable. "How could— Why did— _It can't be._ "

Kneeling, Nero gingerly reaches out, shaking his uncle by the shoulder. "Come on, Dante," he whispers, eyes wide. "Wake up, you ass. It's not funny."

But Dante doesn't move, his heart doesn't beat, and his smile doesn't return.

Vergil holds his brother tighter, wrapping his wings around them like a barrier, and he whimpers so unlike himself, biting his lip to restrain himself. He's covered in blood that is not his own, but the tears are.

"He's gone," the wrong brother whispers back, the flares of his head dimmed. "He's—"

" _Shut up,_ " Nero says, standing up on wobbly legs, and he turns around, pressing his hands into his face but cannot hold back the scream lodged in his throat.

He curses and swears, and in his frenzy of devastation, he triggers, his bright blue wings devouring the room with light. It's blinding— _beautiful_ —and his hair grows long with power, down to his lower back. The feathers of his head drapes over his face like a veil hiding him from the rain of red stained debris that showers over him as his wings punch the bloodied walls. He no longer cares for bodies under his feet.

Anger has always been his way of coping, so unlike his uncle's humor and his father's calm, but anger can't be the answer. It can't bring Dante back.

Nero sees it, the lack of it. The red string that connects Dante to Vergil, to the world of the living. Kyrie lost hers when Credo died, Vergil lost his because _Dante is dead_.

It's breaking him apart just how _real_ death is, how it has come this close to his family again. Nobody lives forever, but this is too soon, too deep, _too raw_.

Nero loved Dante, loved that man so much, and he's gone.

**V**

He does not know why, nor does he care, but like a monster, he’s draining his brother’s body of blood, his sharp fangs ripping into Dante’s neck as he cries with the trill of a vulture. A shrill screech comes from his son, but Vergil does not stop; he must consume everything of Dante to fill in the emptiness slowly creeping inside him, but it starves into his soul at the speed of a void.

He does not notice when Nero charges at him—wings, talons, and fangs bared like an animal—and he tears his brother’s head from his lifeless body, the snap of skin and tendons swallowed by the massacre that surround them. Nero lets out a horrible cry, like a dying bird, and he punches and pulls at Vergil, who continues to tear at his brother’s body, unable to stop. The struggle becomes a disgusting dance between father and son, a devil devouring what he could put in his mouth and an angel scavenging for what is left.

It ends when the devil throws away the angel who, in his grip, steals away his uncle’s head.

But the monster does not notice, seeing only the feast laid before him. It is far too late when he realizes what he has done, the devil fading into the dark and leaving behind a man with only agony on his lips, full with discontent.

The heart he devours is not his, and it does not give him life, nor wisdom, nor courage. It will only hold off the inevitable until it comes.

**VI**

Oh He gives to us His joy,  
That our grief He may destroy:  
Till our grief is fled and gone  
He doth sit by us and moan.

—William Blake

**VII**

They cremate what is left of Dante, and the funeral is a small gathering. When he arrives, Mary tries to kill him with Kalina Ann, but such violence before Missus Lowell would be inappropriate, the mother of two crying her eyes out as old Morrison stands guardingly beside her. Still, the heterochronic raven with deep crows’ feet curses him, calling him names— _monster, murderer_ —but they all fall to deaf ears, Vergil watching all the attendants.

Kyrie, sweet Kyrie, her earthy hair graying, weeps for Dante as she would, a saint’s tears plenty and full of sympathy, unlike the repulsed glare his own son gives him, hiding his family—three sons who’ve grown into men and his only daughter, _Vergil’s granddaughter_ , not yet fully grown with eyes like the sky and hair like clouds—behind him. Nico, with dark bags under her eyes, holds her own grieving daughter’s hand, her face sagging more than years of smoking could’ve done.

_How old they’d became_.

The priest, doing the ceremony for a man who had not a hint of holiness in him, freezes, eyes widen in terror. Vergil thinks it is because he is not dressed properly, his brother’s blood dried on his lips and chin, staining deeply into his vest and coat— _he’s lost time, he’s running out of time_ —but no matter. This is his brother’s funeral, and he is in attendance when it shouldn't have been so.

He stares back at the priest who has yet to continue, tilting his head in confusion. He does not understand why it hurts to have his heart still beating in his chest, and he cannot think of any way to relieve this pain but to rip his out.

_"What makes you think that this," Death says, "is enough?"_

**VIII**

“Please,” Trish says, standing by the urn which encased the man she loved most.

Today, she does not wear black but white, modest as her dress falls to kiss the grass, and her face and hair are veiled like a bride, head lowered in mourning. Her figure seems blank as a sheet, a ghost awaiting her oldest friend but have not yet crossed herself.

“Continue,” she says, without looking up, and her voice is nearly lost to the silence, the winds chilly under the mid-morning sun.

Shaking, the priest obliges, and no one moves where they stood, listening as they let a stranger say their goodbyes because no one could say a word. Not even Morrison takes the post, the man ever eloquent in his words until now.

Dante scatters, his story ends.

Vergil vanishes, a chapter closes.

**IX**

But our love it was stronger by far than the love  
Of those who were older than we—  
Of many far wiser than we—  
And neither the angels in Heaven above  
Nor the demons down under the sea  
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee

—Edgar Allen Poe

**X**

How does one properly mourn? Do they change their attire to a single color and keep their heads low? Or perhaps, after the funeral, they set up a shrine for the dead? To remember them. _To never forget._

The red manor in Red Grave, the ruins of their childhood, barely stands, forever broken and unkempt. The city is a flatland of debris, remnants of buildings and skeleton still littering the ground, too much to savage, too many to name. Long put out of mind, it has become a place to be ignorant of, like most tragedies in living history. It’s been years—more than three decades but Vergil does not recall exactly. He never cared for counting the days. Demons are untouched by mortality, but they fear their deaths; time is intangible to humans, so they measure it.

Vergil is neither and both.

So, it does not matter when or how he arrived back once again before the last and only family portrait to survive. It hangs alone, just as he stands alone, and it is a mirror. The paint has faded in color, dust and dirt collected over their faces; they have become vague figures, his mother and father distant in memory. And slowly, his brother will be too.

He can feel it, reason slowly chipping away and leaving him bare.

He will not fight it.

**XI**

There are wanderers from the other side that still infest the tragedy, low level demons small enough to travel through the rifts left by the Qliphoth years later. A shadow hunts them, a beast with claws and teeth.

He protects the last remains of his home, all while he hungers. He hungers for warmth, for flesh and blood, and so, he devours what he finds. Yet, nothing is filling. A black hole can consume all the stars in a galaxy, but it will then collapse in on itself when energy runs out, reduced to nothing. The beast thinks of nothing as he sits atop slaughtered meat, trying to take in everything he desires, only for it to fade away and dispelled into the air, and for the wind to sound it into a voice in his head.

_"Vergil."_

That is his name, isn't it? If it is, then why does it feel so foreign? _So unreal?_

Vergil does not exist, not anymore. Right?

If so, then why does the beast ache so much? Ache to hear that voice again, to feel that warmth again, to touch that flesh and blood?

Where has he gone, and why has he left?

Receiving no answer, the beast looks up at the stars and counts, only for the sun to wash them away. He loses his place, and he starts over, wishing he could get more of them. There are countless days, but theirs were numbered. He waits for the night when the sky loses all its star and there is no sun to wake him.

  
  
  


The dawn comes despite him.

**XII**

When day and night start mixing into one, there is only one strand of reason left for him. He does not know how much time has passed, and he cannot be sure he is awake for every moment. One blink, the moon is above him; another blink, it is not. Life as he sees is nothing more than a collection of images that comes and goes, faces and names blurring, and from it, he daydreams of a ghost to keep him company, abstract yet vibrant.

Her dress is black tinted turquoise in the light, her shawl silky red over her shoulders, and her hair is as pretty as it is yellow. She is the image that anchors him still to the world of the living, drawing him to reach her, but he misses her. _Always._

She disappears at the slightest turn of the corner, of the minutes, and never within an arm's reach. She is the silence he finds comfort in and the peace he could never obtain.

Eventually, he learns to stop chasing her and to simply follow, like a dog. Like a child. _Her child._ No one's child. They walk almost miles apart, but it's the closest they had been in a lifetime.

The closest they'll ever be again.

**XIII**

Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight  
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined  
So clear as in no face with more delight.  
But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined,  
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

—John Milton

**XIV**

One day, she stops for him, so far yet so close. Her shoes are unmarred by the mud stirred by this morning’s shower, her dress just as untouched. She is a stranded sunflower under a sea of clouds, and yet, she stands tall and firm.

He wishes to fall at her feet and to have her run her hands through his hair again, and tell him that everything will be alright. The beast cries out something broken and indistinguishable, his heart closed off to his mind and his mind severed from his heart, but still, he stands, weak and wavering.

The ghost, she knows. _He feels it._ There is sparse moments of lucidity left, and so, she points to the ground where the rainwater has collected into a shallow lake.

His boots are gone, he doesn't remember where he last left them. His clothes, what remains of it, are dirty with dried blood and dirt that dug themselves between every thread, and he carries no weapon at his side. None of that matters to him, though, when he catches himself in the water's reflection, barely visible to the human eye, but he sees clearly what he has become.

His skin, once fair, has turned ashen pale, blue veins traced across his face and neck like porcelain cracked into alabaster. He looks fragile, like an ornament piece whose glue has started to lose it adhesive. The beast does not recognize himself anymore, but this is a face he knows all too well. A puppet driven by nothing but someone else's desires.

What changed and did not change are his eyes, red and bloodshot. Exhaustion mixing with lifelessness, and this time, it's him who is in full control, there's no one else to blame for his current state, for the path that he will go on.

For the first time, the beast turns his back to the ghost of his own creation and walks away from her, every step both heavy and liberating, and the stars above turn into rain, pouring down.

_"It's okay, it'll go away eventually. I'm here for you."_

**XV**

_"But where are yo—"_

_"Dante?"_

_"Where is he?"_

_"Why has he gone where you cannot follow?"_

_"My son, where is your brother?"_

_"Have you forgotten him again?”_

_"Vergil?"_

**XVI**

Their manor has seen better days, _good days_ , and better people, _good people_.

Yesterday, this room had four walls. Today, it has three.

The beast enters. A man is waiting for him there.

"Vergil."

The beast stands still, eyes always looking at that painting when he comes home. Or whatever is left of it.

What made this manor home was slaughtered. What made home worth coming back to turned to ashes. What is left of home is memories and dust.

"Vergil."

He doesn't reply, the voice estranged.

“ _Father._ ”

The world tilts, realigning the stars with the seasons.

“Nero,” Vergil says, and he turns and _sees_.

The devil hunter has not changed at first sight, hair barely graying and slight wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, and he still wears his coat, Blue Rose attached at his side. Nero sits on the dirty, wood rotten couch that once a rich red velvet, leaning back with his hands on his lap. By the way his shoulders relax, he is relieved, but the look on his face expresses both anger and sorrow, mixing into confusion.

He looks nothing like his uncle, but he resembles that man in other ways, in his eyes, his posture, the way he spoke. He had always been more of a nephew than a son, just as Vergil had been more of a brother than a father.

Already, the hinges are cracking, the stars and the world too heavy to hold down for long.

**XVII**

“It’s been three years.”

“I didn’t notice . . . What brought you here?”

“Dante.”

**XVIII**

“Why?”

“You took everything else.”

“You wish for his namesake.”

“I want what should’ve been mine.”

“I was his brother.”

“I’m his heir. I’m yours too, but you’re not dead yet.”

“Do you wish for it so?”

“No.”

**XIX**

Vergil smiles, seeing the look of hurt crossing Nero’s face. How could he ask that question? To wonder how different it would’ve been if their places were switched, if it had been him who died that day. Nero would have spent six years grieving because where Vergil goes, Dante would follow.

_Because Dante promised._

"I won't give it to you," Vergil then says, looking back at his family portrait, and he holds out his hand, summoning his beloved blade, the last gift his father gave him before disappearing for the rest of eternity. "You shall have someone else."

It's beautiful in his hold, delicate and loyal, and it hums in protest, just like last time. Only Vergil can hear it, and so he ignores it, sliding it out of its sheath. Its blade glints dimly in the light of the fading day, and his image is reflected clearly off it.

_"STOP!"_

Vergil raises his blade above him, its tip pressed gently against his chest. He inhales one last time, looking at the last remaining smile on that portrait, and he exhales one last breath, thrusting Yamato through his tattered heart.

He is enveloped in light, painful and unsatisfactory.

**XX**

Where Vergil last stood, his humanity crumbles and a king arises.

**XXI**

" _Dante,_ " the human calls on his hands and knees, and he wails, cries and sobs ripping his throat hoarse like a dying animal. His frail body is ridden with emptiness, torn apart from his other half, and he trembles like a child, naked as the day he was born. There was once a time that he was in such a place as this, cowering before the demon in his nightmares, but this time, he is not afraid; he is lamenting, the wound of losing the part of his soul he had always yearned—had only just returned to—fresh and searing, festering into his very core, and it is a plague, Nero bursting into tears and his hands clenching in his hair as he lets out a frustrated growl.

And the king towers over the poor human, his large and unmoving shadow blanketing his other half without remorse. He simply stands there, observing and quiet. There's nothing human about him left, he has not the will to cry or mourn. All he has left is in his grasp, Yamato bright and beautiful, and one of his eyes catching his own reflection within it—a demon, a monster, _a devil_.

Some time ago, when he did this once before, bursting whole and pure from his cracking vessel, he'd basked in his own strength and sought out power. The king would've killed both beings that breathed in his presence and began his conquest again, to raise Hell on Earth and take his place as its true ruler.

But this time around, the human world, the demon king decides, has lost all its appeal, and that is reason enough to leave it all behind. The most powerful being on Earth, and he could not bring himself to do more than hide himself away and wait for the world to crumble into dust, buried beneath fire and ash. The sky could drop right now, and he would neither fear nor rejoice.

So, with his beloved blade, he tears at this world, a wound leaking both ways, and Hell, from their side, is pale, the shrieks of lesser demons coming near and far. The plains that stretches before him stretches wide, yellowed grass swaying in the inferno breezes, and bones lay here and there, depraved of flesh and blood. An emptiness rings through the air, a silent siren calling for him.

It has never been so welcoming; _it is home._

"Don't go," Nero says, kneeling by V who still sobbing uncontrollably on the floor. The man's blue eyes are hardened with hurt and pleads, but his voice trembles with anger. "Don't abandon us. _Don't you dare run away, Vergil!_ "

But the king is not Vergil; he is an incomplete being, a demon without his humanity, a brother without his twin. One can make it without the other, but it would not be the same.

_Nothing will be the same again._

**XXII**

The most familiar place in Hell is a body of water that is endless and shallow, abandoned for something better. Ruins stand tilted and skewed here, the remnants of a domain left over by chaos and decay. There are no roofs, just murky streets, for once the sky spied upon here with two eyes and a third. The emperor who reigned here is long gone, sealed away in memories.

The demon king finds the exact spot where he was murdered, flashes of someone else's reflection appearing in the water. Here, he raises a small hill of flesh and dirt, a mound he's not sure for whom, but at the top, he finds peace. It's a small thing, surrounded by high ruins and old.

Tired from his travel from the great plains, Urizen lays his sword, sheath and all, on the sharp wheat grass, and then he summons Dante, his kin's blade, and places it next to Yamato, the pair so different yet so lovely together. The demon king settles beside them on his side, resting his head on his fist, and then he closes his eyes and slumbers.

And in his sleep, he hears them speak, a mixture of gurgled speech by lesser demons and bastardizations of human languages by higher ones. They whisper, their voices like the buzzing of flies, but none come close enough to disturb him.

**XXIII**

"Did you hear?"

“ _Sparda._ ”

"Of the new king in the ruins?”

“I've never seen him before."

" _Urizen_ , they say, is his name.”

“He'd once tried to rule the human world."

"And he failed?”

“What is he doing here?"

"Sleeping."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"How do we know he is as they say he is?"

"No one dares to come close.”

“He guards two powerful swords.”

“His dominion replenishes as he sleeps."

"Yes, the duke’s entire army was decimated.”

“He is strong."

"Shall we become his servants?"

"To serve one dead like him?"

"Compared to maggots like us.”

“He is a god.”

“All we can do is serve."

"Perhaps.”

“We shall see."

**XXIV**

> _Then came the last bit of world and time. On a day just like any other, spent together and adorned with stars and sky, the lovers' path, like all paths of each living and alive, reached its end, and they knew. Neither human nor demon wept. They did not mourn. Hand in hand, they stood as one, and there, the abyss at the edge of the world awaited them. It was not the ever-threatening mobs of their kin that urged them one step more but the desire to continue forward, to see through the ends of their lives, together into the deepest depths of sleep._
> 
> _They did not fall; they flew, catching each other in their arms, and the abyss took their bodies, heavy chains broken in exchange for one last breath. Bound no more by mortal elements, their souls came together as one._

He remembers that story, he read it a long time ago. It was in a children’s book, he thinks.

What was it about? And why does he remember it so? Why now?

Perhaps . . . Perhaps, even in his dreams, he yearns.

But for what? What is there left to yearn for that does not bring back pain and sorrow? Why would he yearn for something that would only hurt?

Why is so lonely here?

_"So if you can redo everything again, you would?"_

**XXV**

As time passes by, the excessive buzzing stirs the king but opens only one eye, and he dreams that his hill has grown a tree taller than the ruins below, blood flowing thickly through the veins which holds together the marble stones turned charcoal. The swords he holds dear lay still by his side, untouched and unmoved for he would know if any other has touched it. His body does not move, but his eye glances, being. The flesh of his grave has fused with his own, making a living monument of him. He is neither irritated nor pleased at the rows of subjects he gained in his slumber, lowly bugs clinging to him like a dung of a fish. They do not know him; they worship him and revere him, and they name him.

“All hail,” they chant before his opened eye, but he does not speak. “Hail the demon Urizen, the King of Sloth.”

Sloth— _apathy_ —they say is the greatest sin, to be numb and uncaring. _But they're wrong._

He does not fear, he does not rejoice; he wants nothing but to sleep. It is in sleep as it is in death— _twin sons of the goddess Nyx and the deity Erebus_ —that one no longer cares or cries or smiles, or everything in between. The king lays here to rest from the world, from what it has to offer, because it has become too much, too heavy to bear alone.

For the loyalty of flies, his eye closes, and quietly, in his presence, a kingdom arises.

**XXVI**

In the king's slumber, _he_ is there, the legendary dark knight. The flies whisper his name. What do they know of him? How do they picture him? Was he a man or a demon?

The consensus of flies makes him a myth, not too grand to be deified and not too grounded to be made insignificant. They love to speak of him, to mock him, but still, they fear him. They say he is still alive. They say he is dead, _murdered_. Few even say that he killed himself, that he had allowed himself to waste away, and all he left was a corpse not even the ants wanted. His only value was in life, and that in death, he became nothing at all.

**XXVII**

In the king's slumber, _he_ is there, dressed in regal purple, and he stands under a bright blue sky, his head held high. He holds his hands behind his back, his white hair combed down past his shoulders, and he is waiting among a field of white flowers, no trees or streams in sight.

The knight speaks with amusement in his tone, but he never looks back, never honoring the king with even a glance. As if he's speaking to someone imaginary.

"Do you know me?"

"I don't know. You seem familiar, but not familiar enough. Maybe I knew you a long time ago. Do you know me?”

"Not anymore. I don't know your face. I've forgotten it."

"Is that so? But you have not forgotten me entirely. It's why I am here."

"I don't know you anymore."

"I don't exist anymore. Only here. It's where I belong."

"I miss you."

"I'm right here."

"It's not the same."

"I don't suppose so. It's beautiful here."

He does not disappear, he is not a ghost. He is like a cloud that does not move, but still, you can never touch him, lonely and bound. He is the quiet which uneasiness loves and the calm which storms wait for. The king does not reach out in his dreams, and he stays rooted, his eyes baring into the back of a man distant in both memories and inches.

The closest they'll ever be again.

**XXVIII**

Continuous as the stars that shine  
And twinkle on the milky way,  
They stretched in never-ending line  
Along the margin of a bay:  
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,  
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

—William Wordsworth

**XXIX**

For the first time, his sleep is pestered by a touch, like a spider crossing frantically with its long legs, and altogether, his eyes open, halting his metamorphosis into soil.

How long as it been since he's been touched? Since he's felt the warmth of another?

Who _dares_ to disturb his sleep?

"Godfly," one lone demon answers, standing mere feet away from the king, "and you are my maker." He is dressed in purple, his hair white past his shoulders, and his face is clear in the inferno night, a red blindfold over his eyes.

How odd. The king does not remember doing such a thing, much less name anything. Have the flies tired of an uncaring master? Have they made themselves a shōgun and named him emperor on his behalf? How bold.

"Not them, _you_ ," this Godfly says, hearing the king's thoughts. "I was birthed from the roots of this tower and made my way back to you."

What an unnatural thing.

"You are my maker. You, the one who makes this tree bloom with color. You, the one who made his throne out of flesh and vines. You, the one who dreamed me into existence. What is it that you will me to do?"

**XXX**

The king shifts, moving off his fist into a sitting position, and the veins of the tower move along with him, forming the throne which Godfly spoke up. His eyes watch and observe, taking in everything they can before they close once again.

His beloved blades are no longer beside him but melded within his tower, and they are like blood clots. He knows where they are, just as he knows that Godfly Alhail, Lord of the Flies, Steward of the King of Sloth, is the only one remaining within his dominion. This being speaks truth, knows only truth. Through his existence, the king will unwillingly hear and speak, even in the deepest slumber.

Fragmented, the king settles, and altogether, his eyes close.

**XXXI**

In the king's slumber, he imagines, and from it, he tells himself the stories of the lord who waged war in search of something he does not know the name of. It is a yearning to go and conquer in hopes of discovering what is missing. The lord raises an army so that he has the eyes he lacks.

All the while, he learns that the breezes of Hell are warm, and that screams in the distance are sometimes love songs of the wretched. The bright lights in the night are simply wil-o'-wisps without souls, and laughter without mouths are leftover sobs of the weak. The lord learns how to walk off cliffs and drown red seas. He learns that there is nothing that he cannot do.

In the king's stories, the lord is always looking for what he does not know the name of, and he does not know that what he seeks no longer exists.

Still, he continues.

**XXXII**

Once, the lord comes across a she-demon who smells like a human. She was created in Hell, she tells him, and therefore, she has every right to be in this world and to die here. One of Godfly's men describes her to the blind lord.

"Her hair is long and yellow, and she wears white. She looks like a human, but she just tore the necks of several of our foot soldiers. She is almost angelic, if not for the blood staining her skin."

And the lord asks the she-demon why she has returned.

"Another one of my friends died, and I didn't want to be there for when the last one goes," she answers. "I'm tired, and I miss my family. I want to go with them."

Where does she wish to go? And what is her name?

**XXXIII**

Her name, the king could not decide for this chapter.

But he knows that she asks to be taken somewhere quiet, somewhere by the sea, somewhere she can watch a sunset, and in repayment, she describes it to Godfly, who sits beside her on the cliff.

"The star here is pale, orange with a tint of pink," she starts, "and its lights scatter in the sky like broken glass, different specks of color hitting in different directions. To the east, the meadow is red, while to the west, the trees are purple. The waves below are weak because there's no moon in Hell. When this star plunges in the horizon, the night will turn everything black. It will get cold and quiet, but before then, in this moment, it's peaceful. Like a lullaby."

Then, the she-demon ceases to speak, and the warmth of day vanishes with a breath.

Another story ends; Godfly weeps, and he doesn’t know why.

**XXXIV**

"You brought me into this world."

"Did I?"

"Yes, with a human woman."

"A beautiful boy."

"I am a monster."

"You are my son."

"So you know me."

"I . . . am not what you want me to be. I am the memories in your possession, and in those possessions, you called me Father and I called you son."

" _Look at me._ "

"Do you recall how I look?"

"I do not."

"Then I have no face. I am what you have left of me."

"I don't have much left."

"That's a pity. I am made content here."

**XXXV**

Years go by, perhaps. It is hard to count— _to care_ —when Time does not exist here. Only Infinity, and the king does not know how to end the story of the lord who wages war without end. Maybe it will be a story that does not end, or maybe it is a story that takes centuries to finish. The king still does not know what the lord seeks, having conceived Godfly blind.

Years go by, perhaps, and other kings and lords come and go. There are allies and sworn enemies, and in search of power, abominable things come into existence. Things of great awe. Of great violence. Of Death. And yet, victory remains meaningless, a means to waste away the emptiness of Time.

It has made the lord no stronger and the king no wiser.

**XXXVI**

Then, one day, the lord is met with two warriors, a pair of young human girls who has only a drop of demon blood in their veins, and they are accompanying a scholar, a man who is not a man. That much, Godfly knows, because he knows this man, he thinks.

“I am who you seek, aren’t I?” the lord asks them. He found them when he was alone, wandering aimlessly in his blindness, but he does not fear them. He has not feared a thing since the moment he was conceived; he may not know what fear is.

“Yes,” the man answers.

“I will not help you.”

One of the warriors lets out a frustrated noise, stomping her way towards the lord. “What? You _better_ tell us,” she demanded, her speech gruff and her voice high, ''or I’m gonna—”

“Eva,” the other one cuts in, voice calmer and deeper. “Grandfather told us to behave ourselves.”

“Grandpa Nero also never behaved himself, _so_ . . . I’m gonna kick your ass if you don’t help us out, you freak! If you don’t think I ain’t shit, then you got another thing coming for you.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Ha! I’d like to see you try, baby sister.”

“Eva, Ave,” the man interrupts softly yet firmly. “We’ll have to make do. With you two, Hell will give us no trouble.”

“That’s such a waste of time. Let’s just torture the guy.”

“Eva!” her sister shouts scandalously. “He’s blind, not deaf!”

The lord hears them get into a scuffle, and he is amused, chuckling into his hand. "You are all odd things," he says. "Tell me a story, and I'll tell you which direction to go."

"Ha?" the elder girl says loudly. "Like a bedtime story? What kind of request is that? Man, Hell's a lot more boring than I thought."

"Eva, _shut up_ if you're not going to help," the younger girl says, a smacking sound coming right after. "You should be grateful he even changed his mind."

"Oh, whatever. V, tell him the one Mom likes the most!"

"If you want," the man says, and he pauses.

Godfly hears the two girls take a seat on the dirt, overly enthusiastic for something so childish so late in their growth. There is a timelessness in them, Godfly knows, something they will have as long they have each other, two sides of an hourglass tilting back and forth with every breathe.

It so familiar yet so distant.

**XXXVII**

There once was a Sparrow forgotten by the gods, lovely and so insignificant, but no one knew until a god set ablaze the forest in which the sparrow and his family lived and proclaimed that all burnt to death were to be his offerings, all flowers and trees, all creatures that ran with feet, flew with wings, and slithered on their bellies. Nothing was to be spared, and so, many, from the ground to the sky, fled, a grand fury of beasts and spirits leaving in a storm as the fire trailed behind their every step. But it was too late for the sparrow family whose nest was built under thick trees. They only knew if morning when the sun rose; night had long fallen, and they were swept by the blaze, crackly going in their sleep. When the other birds returned at dawn, sifting through their ruined homes and ash-filled lakes, they found the sparrow family and mourned, all dead save for the Sparrow himself.

Once the grief faded away, what remained was fear and awe. The fire of a god had touched everything, leaving behind destruction and undiscovered life, but the sparrow remained unharmed, and the other birds did not know what to do. What if the god returned, angered for being shorted his offerings? Will he punish them all in retribution of her ego? So, the birds did what they thought was best for them and their families, and they locked the Sparrow in a cage, hung under thick trees, and abandoned him. That was the punishment of his existence, and the sparrow wept and wept and wept. As he wept, the seasons shifted from one to another and the moon changed its faces, and what was once taken in the fire returned in abundance, life renewed and lives moved on. Though seasons shifted and the moon changed its faces, a bird’s life is rather short; perhaps it was good fortune for the Sparrow who would spend the rest of his short days locked inside that cage that hung beneath thick trees. But his sorrow would come to an end when a Vulture, not a god or a bird, came for him in his final hour.

“I’m sorry,” the Vulture said, perched above on a branch, “that I am late. Go on, I will keep vigil over you. You are not alone.”

The Sparrow quietly thanked his new friend, and he went, leaving his cage empty with a heart full of joy.

**XXXVIII**

The lord points them in a direction he cannot see, but miles away, over the land filled with screams and blood, the place they seek will be there, a Polaris grounded. Eva, the elder, is more agreeable after that, almosting marching her way first, and Ave follows, telling her sister to wait. They bicker a little while their voices start to fade away with every step, and the lord imagines them walking side-by-side, holding hands.

“Hey! Hurry up!” Eva shouts, and Godfly stiffens, deja vu almost tricking him into believing that she meant him.

But she did not; the man who is not a man passes the lord, saying nothing as a third foot helps him walk.

The lord stays as the warriors and the scholar leave, his feet rooting themselves into the dirt. He has outgrown his purpose, his blood and flesh returning whence it came. The story of the lord who wages war does not end; it will simply be forgotten piece by piece, his body breaking away in the breeze like the seeds of a dandelion.

It doesn’t hurt. It feels like nothing at all, and yet Godfly yearns. He yearns in ways the king had never known, and in his last breath, he wishes that he had been more than just a whimper.

**XXXIX**

In his dreams, the king returns to the fields of flowers, but there is no knight waiting for him, just a vast emptiness. He feels lost and out of place, lying on his back, staring at the endless blue sky, and for the first time, tears begin to form and fall.

A devil cries, and he makes no sound. There is no one there to hear.

**XL**

“If you see them, run.”

“They’re too strong. _Too human._ ”

“Where is our lord?”

“Gone. They’ve killed him.”

“Not our lord!”

“What will we do?”

“Nothing. We will lose.”

"The wise and desperate will coward."

“What do they want?”

“The tower. They seek the king.”

**XLI**

When the first footsteps enter his tower, it echoes and vibrates, and the king feels each and every one of them like a small tremor, knowing that one pair staggering while the other two wonder with curiosity. There is nothing to stop them as they make their way up because there is only one being left in the tower, only one reason why it still stands and breathes.

They have come to kill him, the king thinks. Is it out of revenge, or hatred? Perhaps to tie up a loose end that ran away all those years ago? To bring closure of some sorts? What would they gain in his death? What would he gain? Will he allow it? There are so many questions running through his mind, but he has no answers. He cannot answer them himself, so he must wait.

_Soon._

On the floor right below the throne room, the collective tremors stop, and only one pair of footsteps continues, light as if it belongs to a shadow. The king opens his eye and waits, seeing the world in a splash of rainbow.

**XLII**

The shadow reaches the top of the tower—the top of a hill, the top of his grave—and stepping into the scattered light, Time arrives, dressed as Death’s black. He has aged not a second, not a breath, not a heartbeat. How thin, he’s remained. How pathetic. How frail. How well he wears sorrow on his face, his eyes not _seeing_ but _knowing_. Under his gaze, the king feels that he is the ugly portrait of Dorian in the flesh. This is the one who named him, not the flies.

And for the first time in a long timelessness, the king opens his eyes.

**XLIII**

“Urizen.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because I am tired.”

“Humans sleep.”

“And they also wake. It is not enough.”

“And what can a demon do?”

“Not a demon. Just you. I miss him.”

“Who is there to miss?”

“The one we love.”

“Why has he gone where we cannot follow?”

“So you still see her too.”

“No, not since I was last awake.”

“Do you dream?”

“It is all I have done.”

“I envy myself.”

“Do you not? _He_ is there.”

“No, not since an eternity.”

“A pity or a blessing, I do not know.”

“It is neither.”

“Why have you come here?”

“For you.”

“But I have no want of you.”

“ _Please._ ”

**XLIV**

The king knows this shadow, the remnants of what he once was.

The shadow comes up to the throne, head held high like a fairy prince returning to the court of summer and winter. He staggers, weak and weary like the human he is, but he does not waver, the _one-two-three_ rhythm of his footsteps a weakening song. The king taps a finger against his throne to the beat, and they are dancing.

"I want to go back to him, I need you,” his shadow says wistfully. “I want to be Vergil again, Urizen. I'm so tired of living life half alive. As you sleep, I struggle. I miss him, miss our brother so much. I want to go back to Dante. _Please._ "

_Vergil. Dante._ Those are names the king has forgotten. He has used them once since his return. He is not in need of names; what do they matter? He does not even recall faces, he does not recognize them. Until now.

"I don't know them anymore," the king replies.

“But I do,” his shadow replies, breath heavy and half-full. “I've never forgotten. Without them, I'm nothing. _We_ are nothing, but it's not as if we were to exist at all. Two halves of a whole, bound together but living separately. I know them, Urizen, I've always known them."

The royal parade ends when the shadow stands before the king, the former looking up and the latter looking down, but never have they been in standings of such equals. Their song ends, and the king feels nothing—neither blood lust nor sorrow nor agony—but the same exhaustion and relief in his shadow’s eyes. In all his slumber, rest never came; it was spent trying to fit back leftover gears of a broken machine out of touch with reality. It was spent trying to make sense of the world that no longer spun the right way, to make sense of why he does not see the stars as he once did.

Why did he ever come here?

"We never feared death,” the shadow replies. “We never feared where our next step will take us but that we will fall without someone to hold. We feared being alone. That is why you ran. That is why I am here. You have done nothing without me, and I am nothing without you. I had hoped once, that I could be my own, to live how we’ve always wanted, but it’s _hollowing_. I carry the weight of our knowledge and our wisdom, but you carry our heart. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“I have no place for a heart,” the king replies.

And the shadow has the audacity to laugh, cold sweat running down his skin. He places a hand over his chest. “Then, tear me open, you’ll find an empty space here. I am done living a life of daydreams half-alive, and I can’t stand to be killed by anyone but myself.”

He pauses, his laughter buried beneath a smile. “Is it a wonder that despite how much we have been through, how much we’ve lost, there’s still space in here?”

“Foolish,” the king says, but he reaches out a hand despite his words, fulfilling a longing he had hidden deeply away. 

**XLV**

To touch his shadow is grounding, more than this hill—this tower, this grave—ever was, and in a quiet suddenness, he remembers his humanity.

When both halves of a whole fitted back together, he sees a field of white under a sky where the day meets the night, and they are waiting for him, their red and purple becoming distinct like a portrait. 

_Are you ready?_ the night asks, and when he shakes his head, the day whispers, _Then we can wait a little longer._

**XLVI**

Where the king sat his head and his humanity stood, Vergil is, a smile on his face as his flesh turns into dust and his blood into ashes. He has not much time left, and he has one more thing to do. The world is still titled, the seasons and stars not aligned, but it no longer matters.

All around him, his tower begins to creak, its heart no longer in its place and its veins dried out, and so he makes his way down the steps, down to where _they_ are. Every step, he is reminded of his brittleness, and yet, it is not enough to stop him; he does not wish to die alone.

**XLVII**

When the twins were born, their mother—Lavinia, _Vergil’s granddaughter_ —almost died, but when all three of them survived, Nero cried. Everyone was there to greet them, Lavinia the last of her siblings to have her own family. Her adoptive brothers, worried out of their minds, also cried while Dido—Nico's daughter—rolled her eyes, saying, "There's no way my best friend will die after all the shit we've been through."

Morrison, the eldest of them all, died from a heart attack years ago, but Mary died when the twins were ten. Trish disappeared right after that. Then went Nico, then Missus Patty, and then Kyrie. 

All that time, V was there, raising his granddaughters as he raised their mother, and all that time, he was envious. Why was he being left behind? He watched as everyone he knew age and die while Time did not touch him, did not make him younger or older. And yet, he was becoming ancient, the teller of stories and the keeper of memories. 

When Nero died, he did so quietly in his bed, and V thought to himself that _finally_ , it was time to go. 

**XLVIII**

Lavinia told V to take her daughters with him on his trip to Hell, much to the human's surprise. "I don't want you to go alone," she said, her mother's smile living on though it did not entirely match her father's eyes. She pressed a kiss against his cheek, just like she used to as a child. "I miss you already." 

With their mother's approval, Eva and Ave jumped at the chance to join their great-grandfather on a new adventure. They wanted to see how they matched against the chaos of Hell, and V felt nothing but gratitude as they decimated everything their way. Watching them was nostalgic, as if watching a home video. 

Eva, with the crude mouth she inherited from Lavinia, has her hair in a pony, which she never takes care of it herself so her sister does out of frustration. She likes to drink when nobody's watching but only beer because everything else is too fruity or too strong. Her likes to sing, and she hates wearing pants. 

Ave, on the other hand, is the smoker, something she got from her Aunt Dido. She has always had Nero's short cut ever since she could hold a pair of scissors, and though she acts more mature, collateral damage is her forte. 

They are Vergil's beloved children, and to them, he bestowed them, as a parting gift, two blades crafted with magic. It's the least he could do for them after all they've done for him.

**XLIX**

"Who the hell are you?" Eva says the moment she sees him, unfamiliar with this form coming down the cracking steps. 

"Where's V?" Ave asks, already pointing her sword with a scowl. 

Vergil laughs, and he raises his hands. He's not going to make it easy for them. "That's for me to know," he replies, summoning his summon swords, "and for you to find out." 

And like dogs to a bone, they attack, and Vergil runs towards them, feeling light. 

**XLX**

They fight like it’s the end of the world, and there’s a party. As the descendants of the legendary knight and a legendary devil hunter, nothing could touch them. Their human blood feeds their demon flesh, healing wounds in a blink of an eye and crafting bone out of dust, and having never separated, they know each other’s moves inside and now, moving and stinging like wasps. Nero looked at them adoration, granddaughters who got closer and closer to kicking his ass every day. Kyrie always teased that they got nothing from her, not with the way they move with such grace and such recklessness, but Nero would argue, “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

Then, that boy would laugh as Eva and Ave attempt to kill him because they’re twelve and that’s embarrassing.

It’s when they’re fourteen that Ave managed to shoot out his kneecap, and he gives her Blue Rose. The next year, Eva steals the beloved gun and takes out his other kneecap. Nero learns his lesson and starts fighting them in his DT form from then on, talons, wings, and all. 

But Vergil won’t fight them with his DT. It’s not like he can anyway; he’s falling apart, but this is one last fight, their first and last. V was never strong enough to fight, and he lost Griffon, Nightmare, and Shadow. He was simply a hapless human whose only value was in his knowledge and his patience. He was the grandfather Lavinia lost and the great-grandfather the twins never had. They were his just as much as he was theirs.

“Fuck!” Eva shouts as Vergil catches her by the ankle, and he thrashes her into the floor, a sickly crack followed by another curse. Her arming sword—bright and brilliant—flies out of her hand, cutting into stone. 

“You bastard!” Ave growls, baring her canines, and she’s landing a jump from behind him, swinging her halberd—a ribbon in her favorite shade tied to the end for good luck—down like an executioner. 

Vergil dodges because that is how they start their fights, solo, taking turns, one hits and then the other. For many enemies, they are formidable opponents all on their own, but their greatest attack is made together, reserved for the worst of monsters. He would continue to have the upper hand if they think he is a worm easily crushed by a booth, so he throws a summon sword at the younger sister, pinning her to the shaking wall right below her heart. She bleeds red deeper and richer than either demon or human. 

“How do you think I am?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. He holds out his hands, a dozen blue lights shining all around him like crosses. “You better hurry if you want to make it out of here alive. You don’t want to make your dear mother cry, do you?” He turns his head just as he pulls a sword to block a charcoal rock, and a vermilion blur rushes by him, dismissing him to get to her sister. 

Eva, with her sword back in hand, unpins Ave, catching her before she falls. “I’ll kill you before you _ever_ speak of my mother again,” she warns, her Nero blue eyes burning with anger, and she quickly looks to her sister. “Let’s go, baby sister.” 

Ave nods, already standing up on her own, and she grips her halberd with both hands. 

Without a word, in a shared breath, their demon aspects come into being in wisps of smoke.

**L**

Horns made of aquamarine stones protrudes from the back of her skull to crown her at a point above her head, their tips almost touching. Her skin is a blue shade of spring green, and her wings bear the eyes of a moonlight moth, extending into thin tails. And the other, her skin is a pottery set ablaze, her long silver hair grown longer like a veil over her thin, crystal red butterfly wings. Her horns made of rubies grew in backwards, the corners of a triangle. They stand back-to-back, pointing their blades at Vergil, their single target. Their eyes glow with a fury, and when they charge at him, their light comes closer, brighter than any star. 

Vergil smiles, clenching his outreached hands into fists. His swords combine into two, larger than before, and he raises them above him, feet rooted not by blood and flesh but by pure will. 

That, by far, has done more for him than any tower, than any form of power.

**LI**

It is said that the end of the world would be announced by a trumpet and Hell would ascend onto the Earth; here, in Hell itself, it starts with a sigh because they do not pierce him but through him, his flesh held together by strings. It does not hurt. Instead, he is proud. His great-granddaughters, a set of twins with his father’s colors and his mother’s shapes, and they are strong, powerful, _happy_. He raised them, he taught them. _He loves them._

Vergil’s smile never falters, reaching his hands to cup their faces so close to his, and their Nero blue eyes widen, familiar with his touch. 

“V?” Ave says, the hands on her halberd now trembling, and Eva chokes out a sob. “What have we done?”

“You saved me,” Vergil answers the elder adoringly as he wipes a thumb across the younger’s cheek, and where her tears touched, his flesh became a whisper. He has so much to say, so much left to teach them, but like always, there is never the time to do so. He sees his great-granddaughters sob, losing their horns and wings to unbalanced breathes, but he does not hear a sound. It’s as quiet as the rainbow falls through the cracks and the holes of the crumbling tower. 

“Thank you.”

  
  


What happens after the story ends? 

Vergil closes his eyes, and when a second, a breath, a heartbeat in Time passes, he goes fully into sleep. 

**LII**

The last sound in the world is the sound of steel shattering, two swords bound by blood and legacy broken beyond all repair. The cycle of renewal and destruction will not come for them again. 

Vergil dreams, and the bluest sky is so clear tonight. He is in awe, having looked up and seeing the faint presence of the stars. They are endless and beautiful like the flowers that glowed at his feet, splattering across the world. He is so small.

"There you are.” 

He turns, and a breeze steals his breath. 

The vigil knight has a face, and the daydream ghost has a form. 

"I know you," Vergil says with a child's voice, and relief washes over him, cleansing him of a lifetime of guilt and sin. "I remember you."

"Yes," the daydream ghost says, Beauty walking towards him with an outreached hand, and when he takes it, her touch is gentle. "My treasure," she calls him, "we've been waiting for so long."

"Shall we go now?" the vigil knight asks, holding out his hand too, and Vergil hesitates, wondering exactly how long it'd been since he last saw his father. "Together?" 

_Together._

Nodding, Vergil takes his father's hand, and his parents begin to lead him down the starlit valley, the flowers lighting their path. For the first time in eternity, he feels safe, delight and joy flooding into him, and he's smiling, swinging their arms back and forth with excitement. His mother and father are smiling too.

"Where are we going?" the boy asks, looking for what is ahead, and a tree comes in the distance, its thick trunk dark and mossy and its branches spreading into the sky. A lone figure is waiting for them underneath, waving an arm. "I know him. That's my brother. That's—"

A gust of wind sweeps away the sound he makes, and he lets go, not sparing a glance back because this time, he knows they’ll be right behind him. He’s running, laughter and tears mixing, and he lets out a final cry.

  
  


_"Dante!"_

_"Welcome home, Vergil."_

* * *


End file.
